Vermont Senate Gives Aid-in-Dying Backers a Scare

Credit Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

The day after the Vermont Senate passed legislation allowing doctors to provide lethal medication to terminally ill patients who request it, legislators gave backers of the bill a scare.

Word spread through the Statehouse Thursday afternoon that Senator Robert Hartwell, a key swing vote on the question, was asking for reconsideration of the vote to support the bill, in which Hartwell was in the majority on Wednesday.

With another supporter, Addison County Democratic Senator Christopher Bray, out sick, there was speculation one more switched vote could reverse Wednesday's 17-13 vote in support of the measure.

But as the Senate convened, Hartwell withdrew his request for reconsideration, meaning the Senate's approval a day earlier stands.